r the Penobscot. Then later with the Iroquois, as far
west as the country of the Senecas. At Albany and Schenectady we stored
our pelts, and so on to New York, where my father shipped them over the
sea."

"But he could ill spare you surely?"

"Very ill. But as he was rich, he thought it best that I should learn
some things that are not to be found in the woods. And so he sent me in
the _Golden Rod_, under the care of Ephraim Savage."

"Who is also of New York?"

"Nay; he is the first man that ever was born at Boston."

"I cannot remember the names of all these villages."

"And yet there may come a day when their names shall be as well known
as that of Paris."

De Catinat laughed heartily. "The woods may have given you much, but
not the gift of prophecy, my friend. Well, my heart is often over the
water even as yours is, and I would ask nothing better than to see the
palisades of Point Levi again, even if all the Five Nations were raving
upon the other side of them. But now, if you will look there in the gap
of the trees, you will see the king's new palace."

The two young men pulled up their horses, and looked down at the
wide-spreading building in all the beauty of its dazzling whiteness,
and at the lovely grounds, dotted with fountain and with statue, and
barred with hedge and with walk, stretching away to the dense woods
which clustered round them. It amused De Catinat to watch the swift
play of wonder and admiration which flashed over his companion's
features.

"Well, what do you think of it?" he asked at last.

"I think that God's best work is in America, and man's in Europe."

"Ay, and in all Europe there is no such palace as that, even as there is
no such king as he who dwells within it."

"Can I see him, think you?"

"Who, the king? No, no; I fear that you are scarce made for a court."

"Nay, I should show him all honour."

"How, then? What greeting would you give him?"

"I would shake him respectfully by the hand, and ask as to his health
and that of his family."

"On my word, I think that such a greeting might please him more than the
bent knee and the rounded back, and yet, I think, my son of the woods,
that it were best not to lead you into paths where you would be lost, as
would any of the courtiers if you dropped them in the gorge of the
Saguenay. But _hola_! what comes here? It looks like one of the
carriages of the court."

A white cloud of dust, which had rolled towards t